Pew Research is a corporation. Like all other corporations, they are interested in making money. I thought that was called capitalism. I must have missed the part where they're trying to bring down their own corporation by overthrowing the whole capitalist economic system via proletarian revolution to achieve a classless society wherein workers control the means of production directly.

Oh wait, I forgot, Republicans have no clue what socialism is, because they have no clue how economics works.

Amongst RV, Obama is +16, so it doesn't seem the LV model is to blame. And looking at the demographic breakdown, everything looks legit. So my guess is that this is a sampling issue--not to use "issue" in a pejorative sense. These results are basically solid, probably within the margin of error of the actual distribution, so I think it's worth taking heart from.

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING FROM FIVETHIRTYEIGHT.COM THEN STOP HANGING OUT AND GET IN TOUCH WITH THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN AND START CALLING.

Nate Silver (Yesterday): If the national polls are tightening, there is no evidence of it in the state numbers. If the national tracking polls moved at all today, they moved slightly in McCain's direction, as he gained ground in the Rasmussen and Research 2000 polls, whereas the other six trackers were essentially flat. However, there has really been no sign of tightening in the state polls.

Our model places more emphasis on state polling, and there's a pretty good reason why: they give us a lot more data to look at. Today's for instance, there were 3,539 "fresh" interviews conducted (e.g. those that were not already accounted for in previous' days tracking polls) between eight national polls that we added to our database. By contrast, there were 22,881 fresh interviews conducted between 31 new state polls.

If the state polls aren't showing movement toward McCain, then it is probably the case that any perceived movement in the national polls is sampling noise. If anything, in fact, the state polls are showing movement toward Obama on balance, not just in battleground states like Virginia, but also in non-battlegrounds as diverse as New York, Oklahoma, Oregon and Arizona.

well,
if it is an outlier, all recent pew polls must be called outliers. I'm also agreeing Obama's lead is somewhere at +7. the pollsters have serious difficulties accounting for -maybe- higher turnout of younger people.

Tightening in national polls, if not statistical noise, is due to increased support in red states and some tightening in states where, despite that, McCain has no chance (e.g., NY; Illinois; California). So end of story. Start calling and work to increase that Obama turnout.

Again, I more or less endorse Nate Silver's take on Pew, which is that it is not an outlier, but does represent something of a best-case scenario for Obama in terms of methodology. Basically, Pew is apparently focused on just getting the demographics (including cell phone usage) of its sample correct, then letting the political results fall as they may.

There goes another news cycle for McCain... David Gergen is going to have a frustrated seizure on AC36o tonight!

I wouldn't feel as good about this if I respected Mac and his campaign, but he has squandered his honour and his campaign is openly insulting their VP candidate. This is not a campaign between 2 honourable men.

You're probably right, but it sure is fun to see McSurge folks rattled by this poll. Of course they're going to dismiss it as BS, but you know that deep down they were hoping this poll would show a significant tightening. They might still call Pew a socialist pollster (what does that even mean? Do they redistribute leads?) but then we'd hear about how even the socialist pollsters show McCain closing.

Either way, the strategy for us remains the same: get out, knock on doors, call some people, and most of all, VOTE!

The margin on this poll is obviously high, but look more closely at the actual numbers: the margin is too high because McCain is implausibly low, not because Obama is implausibly high. Pew has Obama at 52%, nicely in line with other polls. McCain at 38% is obviously out of whack, but probably reflects Pew finding Obama support much firmer than McCain's, which again makes sense given many pollster's recent numbers on enthusiasm levels. So, an outlier in margin, yes, but a plausible number for Obama.

Well, the PEW poll is hard to believe and I don't. I do agree completely with Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com, though. Erratic Man and Sow with Lipstick are done if you look at the state polling data. Period. End of story. Practice some etiquette for your role as the loyal opposition. Now I must say adieu, mon ami, while I make my calls.

This is from ARG
"While the national ballot has remained unchanged since the last week of September, Barack Obama continues to gain electoral votes. Obama now leads in 30 states with a total of 375 electoral votes and John McCain leads in 21 states with a total of 163 electoral votes."

"The Center is a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation which operates under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service code. It was established in 2004 as a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, a Philadelphia-based public charity."

wow this is huge if even close to being true and with obamas speech on wednesday he could really swing some of those undecided towards. Looking like a 55-45 win in the popular vote here and electoral landslide that sees montana, north Dakota, georgia and maybe even Arizona going blue. It can happen people

McCain advisors ran an waful campaign... but that does not mean they are dumb enough to think they have a shot at winning. Former Romney McCain aids are wanting to expose Palin NOW as the reason they lost. That gives Romney the lead for 2012. It makes total sense they are abandoning grandpa and positioning thmesleves to work for a viable candidate - Romney, in 2012. Palin IS a wchack job... no question about it.

McCain advisors ran an awful campaign... but that does not mean they are dumb enough to think they have a shot at winning. Former Romney supporters who are now McCain aids are wanting to expose Palin NOW as the reason they lost. That gives Romney the lead for 2012. It makes total sense they are abandoning grandpa and positioning thmesleves to work for a viable candidate - Romney, in 2012. Palin IS a wchack job... no question about it.

It's blatantly obvious that the "source" won't be revealed because they don't want to ruin their republican reputation. People are venting at the McCain campaign, calling up people like John King and other various reporters who have inside connections like that.

After Nov. 4th, the real blame game will begin and people will come out of the woodworks against McSame and Plain.

McCain advisors ran an waful campaign... but that does not mean they are dumb enough to think they have a shot at winning. Former Romney McCain aids are wanting to expose Palin NOW as the reason they lost. That gives Romney the lead for 2012. It makes total sense they are abandoning grandpa and positioning thmesleves to work for a viable candidate - Romney, in 2012. As we all know now...Palin IS a whack job... no question about it if you have an IQ above 60.

People working for campaigns that aren't going so well often start leaking negative stories to the press down the stretch. Basically, they are trying to pre-spin the explanation of why their candidate might lose, and they are doing that for their own personal professional interests. For example, a person strongly associated with creating McCain's strategy might try to pin the blame for a loss on Palin not executing that strategy faithfully, because that would be an indirect way of defending their own personal role in creating that strategy.

" I am so f*cking sick of these "unnamed advisors" saying exactly what the MSM wants them to say a week before an election. Face it people, they don't exist. "

Do you really want to become a conspiracist, Boom? Do you really want to put yourself one step away from the gun-totting Oklahoma militias who think that the government orchestrated 9/11 to take their guns away? Do you really want to go there?

I have been working on the construction of the all new 'Boomometer' - an election forecast model to rival that of socialist baseball terrorist, Nate '538' Silver. The one failure in his model, as I see it, is that it does not have a Boomshak (tm) FAILsafe mechanism, that engages everytime the gap in any poll is wider than 2% points in favour of ANY Democratic candidate. The Boomshak (tm) FAILsafe mechanism should be turned up spectacularly high if there is ANY hint of un-Americanism regarding the Democratic candidate in question. Polls are therefore only legitimate if and when they demonstrate a proper, pro-American, capitalistic bias. This poll, regardless of whether the pollster in question has a good record, correctly predicted Bush's victory in the previous election, and is renowned the world over as a blue chip social research agency has FAILED.

The Boomometer is available from all good retailers for $9.99 - although I am sure we'll be giving them away from November 5th

Pew is one of the most respected survey research firms around and its director Andrew Kohut is top notch. With that said, surveys use sampling methods and statistical inference, hence the margins of error. However, just because the margin is high, it should not automatically be dismissed as an outlier.

A few other observations. Pew is not a corporation. It is non-profit and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Not being a daily tracking poll, Pew can take a bit more care in constructing its sample and having better quality control in general.

Obama supporters should take nothing for granted and get out and work. I have canvassed in VA for four Saturdays and will be out gain this Saturday and Election Day. Fight every day and fight hard. Never give up.

I have a different take on the latest #s in states like GA, NC, VA and other traditionally red states that are toss up or leaners. In past election cycles, those voters who live in these "Red" states had no real incentive to think their vote mattered on a national scale, and were only motivated to vote for local reasons. Many times these local reasons were not enough to get a lot of people to the polls. Now, fast forward to 2008, the "Red" states now have a chance of turning "Blue" and those voters who felt as though their vote meant nothing, are excited about the prospect of change. We are seeing this in the states that have early voting (NC, GA and FL as well as others). There is a movement here that is not showing up in the tracking polls or state polls. It does not bode well for the Republicans. Those who do not live in one of these states might not see it, but in GA, NC and VA it is palpable. We see this as an opportunity to matter and we are not going to pass on the chance.

best time to catch boomshak lucid is between 5 and 7 am. After that I don't know what happens he seems to lose a few nuts, bolts and screws as the day goes on. Maybe medication.

It may well be as every day these polls just get worse and worse for him - the Rasmussen one normally finishes him off recently though he's even been holding out for the Kos and comparing the traditional LV Gallup - that's going to change up shortly!

This in-fighting and name-calling could be the McCain campaign’s way of trying to “pull a Hillary”. Over the weekend we had ‘diva’ and today we have ‘whackjob’. Perhaps they think that they can get women to rally around a fellow sister who’s under assault.

WHAT POLL SHOWS YOUR CANDIDATE WINNING? FOR THOSE OF YOU HOPING FOR PA! GIVE IT UP! THE CLOSES THAT McCAIN WILL CLOSE THAT GAP IS 5% IN THE KEYSTONE STATE! WHY IS THERE INFIGHTING GOIG ON IN THE McCAIN CAMPAIGN? COULD IT BE THAT THEIR INTERNAL POLLS ARE SHOWING THEM THAT THEY ARE IN REAL TROUBLE? PALIN IS A DIVA? PALIN IS A WHACK JOB?

Sample is too Democratic to be reliable. Buried deep is their partisan breakdown: D39%, R24%. I don't think the D voting advantage is going to be that high. I expect a D voter turnout advantage of about 7% this year, so a more realistic estimate from this poll is about Obama +7, which would be right in line with other polls.

Boom guess what? There goes another news cycle talking about McCain infighting! ROFL GOD I LOVE IT! McCain's only executive decision was to pick this AWFUL VP. Smiling big time here. Alot of people are really SCARED of her Boom.

Man, Boom**** BETTER be on here on election night. I want to throw 6 months of his idiotic quotes back in his face and see him defend his paranoid delusions about how every single poll that doesn't confirm what he already believes is "biased" or made-up.

Of course he won't be here, he'll be too busy drowning his sorrows in gin and angrily masturbating to Milton Friedman's "Essay in Positive Economics."

This is completely idiotic. Why would it be to the "MSM's" advantage to show the race as wider than it really is? The closer the horse race, the more people are interested, and the more people buy newspapers/watch news, etc.. If the mainstream media was distorting their polls, they would be making it look closer than it is. And if anyone is doing that, it's Zogby, who is basically sucking at Drudge's teat by using outdated partisan ID weighting from 2004.

There are 6,220,485 registered voters in NC
Dem 45.67%
Repub 32.02%
AA 22%
Huge enthusiasm gap in who is going to the polls.

Interestingly, Dems are continuing to increase (ever so slightly) there registration advantage on a day to day basis. This is because with one-stop voting you can register and vote in person in the county that you live in until Saturday Nov 1. Dems are doing this. Repubs are not (as much).

Not to kill anyone's fun watching every little blip of the polls (who was it who called Rasmussen "polling crack"?) but read this and then log off the site for a few days:

Variability: This is a race of considerable variability in various organization's estimates of what should be the same quantity. And at the same time I have never seen such stability in my estimates of the daily lead. A typical day sees about ten organizations report an Obama lead varying between 1 and 14 points. Thirteen points difference is a lot, more than double what would be expected from sampling fluctuation alone. This arises chiefly, it appears, from two sources, (1) initial assumptions about the partisan makeup of the electorate, and (2) varying likely voter assumptions. Both are probably more ambiguous than usual this year. Democratic party identification is trending upward this year. In that context it is harder than in a more stable environment to know what the right numbers are. Any old assumptions will very likely be wrong, as would the practice of just forcing the sample to have equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, which used to be employed, and maybe still is, by the Battleground poll. Turnout projection is especially difficult this year because the Obama campaign intends to turn out huge numbers of young and African-American voters who are traditional nonvoters. A model that assumes traditional patterns will be wrong if the campaign succeeds and right if it fails. Figuring out the quality of the two sides ground games is beyond the normal expertise of pollsters.

Stability: When all the polls are combined to form daily estimates, it is the opposite fact that is most striking. Despite all that daily variation, Barak Obama has held a lead over John McCain of about 7 points over more than a month with virtually no daily variation. In my metric of the two-party vote division, the Obama lead of about 53.5 is just locked between 53 and 54 day after day after day. The organizations that do really large samples are reporting the same fact, remarkable continuity of day to day estimates, as if the race has been frozen since late September. Tracking polls with smaller samples are reporting trends, back and forth, which, while entertaining, appear to be quite false.

It's time to stop referring to Zogby as a pollster and call that organization what it is: an advertising wing of the RNC, generating horse**** poll numbers to use in fund-raising letters so the GOP base can fool themselves about what is about to happen.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel's government.

Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate's stance on Iran as "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content."

Obama visited Paris in July, and the Iranian issue was at the heart of his meeting with Sarkozy. At a joint press conference afterward, Obama urged Iran to accept the West's proposal on its nuclear program, saying that Iran was creating a serious situation that endangered both Israel and the West.
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According to the reports reaching Israel, Sarkozy told Obama at that meeting that if the new American president elected in November changed his country's policy toward Iran, that would be "very problematic."

Until now, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany have tried to maintain a united front on Iran. But according to the senior Israeli source, Sarkozy fears that Obama might "arrogantly" ignore the other members of this front and open a direct dialogue with Iran without preconditions.

Following their July meeting, Sarkozy repeatedly expressed disappointment with Obama's positions on Iran, concluding that they were "not crystallized, and therefore many issues remain open," the Israeli source said. Advisors to the French president who held separate meetings with Obama's advisors came away with similar impressions and expressed similar disappointment.

According to the Israeli source, Sarkozy plans to begin intensive negotiations with the new American administration, regardless of whether it is headed by Obama or Republican Sen. John McCain, even before the new president takes office in January, with the goal of persuading him to continue the current policy on Iran.

But Sarkozy's pessimism does not stem only from Obama's stance; it also stems from the overall behavior of the international community toward Iran's nuclear program, and particularly its inability to agree on a fourth round of Security Council sanctions against the Islamic Republic. This foot-dragging will make it impossible to effect a change in Iran's nuclear policy, Sarkozy believes.

The French intelligence community believes that Iran has already obtained about 40 percent of the enriched uranium it would need for its first bomb, and that at its current rate, it will obtain the rest of the uranium it needs in the spring or summer of 2009.

However, French agencies are divided over what Iran is likely to do once it has this uranium. One view is that the Iranians will immediately make a nuclear bomb, in order to demonstrate their capability. The other is that Iran will continue enriching uranium without making a bomb - at least until it has enough enriched uranium for several bombs.

this is not really an outlier as the Obama number is preety much were it has been with the others.
Of the the undecideds figure 60% + will go to MCCainn but that is irrelevant if Obama is already over 50%. Only question tha really is open is size of Obama victory which I think will be 4-7% with a small chance that it could be as high as 10%.

There are 6,220,485 registered voters in NC
Dem 45.67%
Repub 32.02%
AA 22%
Huge enthusiasm gap in who is going to the polls.

Interestingly, Dems are continuing to increase (ever so slightly) there registration advantage on a day to day basis. This is because with one-stop voting you can register and vote in person in the county that you live in until Saturday Nov 1. Dems are doing this. Repubs are not (as much).

Someone please explain to me how one would know if a pollster was the most correct all polling season like people claim to be the case for IBD. The only time you would know if you are correct would be if your last poll matched the results.

How would you know, for istance, that your poll was correct 2 weeks earlier. There is no way to know that. I don't believe one can make the case that a particular poll was MOST correct over time. Only at the end of the process.

You know, the only real poll of interest today is the SUSA poll in OH. Steady in OH. If the buckeye and keystone states throw 41EVs to BO, no other remotely close state matters (not even PA) and that looks likely. Frankly, OH and FL polls are the only ones that even pique my interest anymore.

Well I just heard from an "un-named senior Obama advisor" they are doing lines of coke on the Obama bus.

---

But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate's stance on Iran as "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content."

boomshak, do you accept journalism that uses anonymous sources or not? make up your damn mind!

boomshak:"Based upon a complete lie made up by a leftw-ing blogger. Your whole party is a lie."

boom, don't you GET IT? It does NOT MATTER if that is based on a lie or on truth or a leftwing blogger or a martian. What matters, a week before the election is that story has amazing traction and is dominating the news since last Saturday.

btw, it is not based on a lie. There two names in McCampaign who have been quoted in the story. One of them has already been named by a poster in this very thread. See if you can find the other all by yourself.

I would love to be a fly on a wall in McTrailer, but I will settle for a front row seat at the current GOP knife fight. Which, btw, started 2 weeks BEFORE the elections. 60 seats in the Senate. Thanks, gramps!

Mostly, but not completely. If your numbers are wildly swinging around what other polls are averaging, one can infer that your poll sucks. If one can show that the assumptions you make are crap, then your poll probably sucks (Hello Zogby and 2004 voter ID!). But as you say, no one knows for sure. I'd amend your statement to say that even after the results are in, nobody knows who the best pollster was. Best for what? end result? following trends well? picking up trends early? You don't know these from the results. And even from the results you aren't sure why the pollster that was the closest was the closest. The best thing to do is look over lots of races and see who is consistently right over time. 538 has done a bit of this work.

No. Your philosophy places too much emphasis on deductive reasoning. In fact it can be argued that you are responsible for the decline of Western civilisation. It wasn't until Galileo, who disproved your scientific methodology, that science was put back on the correct path!

I'm for Obama but I think that 9.7 advantage is a bit high. If you change it to a 5% advantage (to be conservative, worst-case scenario for turnout) or even 7%, someone good at math tell me what that would change the numbers to. Thanks!

I'd say that PEW is picking up the potential for republican voters to just not show up on election day, which is a very real possibility with every poll showing McCain losing his ass in this one. A lot of people will just say, "why bother." Obama's supporters are much more enthusiastic, and want to be part of history. I would be shocked if Obama wins the electoral vote by 13 on election day, but I would not be shocked to see him break double digits. My prediction is Obama +8.5

As I have mentioned before, early in the year Pew did a survey specifically designed to measure party ID, and got 36% D, 27% R, 37% no party. So, that current split is consistent with their prior surveys.

I've had a hard time deciding lately where I would set the over/under on Obama-McCain. I think it's the right time to decide now. So let's say I'd accept your even money bets that Obama wins by at least 10 points (55-45 in the final national vote tallies). Anyone betting Obama?

And to clarify my own views, I think it is possible Pew is missing a bit of what I call the "Shy Tory" effect, which could lead to underrepresentation of Republicans/McCain supporters in their numbers. Or not ... there is really no way tell for sure at this point.

See my 12:47 post above. Generally, there is no real way to tell what the current party id percentages should be other than polling, so at most you can ask for a pollster to use reasonable and consistent polling methods.

My 22 year-old daughter commented to me the other day that she doesn't believe the poll numbers are anything near accurate as far as Obama's lead over McCain because in her circle of friends (college students and working kids alike in Richmond, VA)she only knows one who has anything but a cell phone, no actual land-based phone line, so most of the polls just don't reach them.

So just for fun, and by no means meant to be anything but anectdotal, my daughter and I asked a random sampling of friends and family we have (i.e. those who answered their phones) whether they owned a land-based phone or cell only or both, then reaffirmed they were registered to vote and were GOING to vote. We did not ask who they were voting for. FWIW, my Dad is still a Nader fan and made it clear WITHOUT me having to ask...lol. Anyway, here's what we ended up with.

Like I said, it was just for fun, but it certainly begs the question of how much larger the Obama lead might be in ALL the polls, not just Pew's, if all the likely voters in this country who own cell phones only were included in the traditional polls.

Lets not be complacent because of poll numbers. Lets win this election at the voting booth. Get to the polls and do your constitutional duty of voting. The Democrats are the party of the people, and the people are going to win this election at the voting booth. Vote early if you can, but if you can't, then get to the voting booth on election day and vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden!

"As a firm Obama supporter, this sounds a bit high. However, just for sake of comparison, Pew's final poll in 2004 returned Bush 51%, Kerry 48% - dead on accurate."

You are very correct about the 2004 poll. I remember it was the very last poll I looked at 4 years ago, the night before the election. at the time, I did not want to believe it, but they were right on the money. I think there is more truth to this poll than untruth. In my book, this election is anywhere from 7 to 12%BO - and I agree with another post that 10% BO is not that far-fetched.

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